Women's Learning Partnership participated in the United Nations 62nd Commission on the Status of Women in New York City during March 2018. Afkhami spoke at the "Human Rights Defenders: A Panel with Female Advocates" co-hosted by Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and UN Watch.

TPC is Women's Learning Partnership's annual convening of its member organizations to share best practices, strategize for future successes and build solidarity across the global women's movement. WLP founder and President Mahnaz Afkhami opened this year's TPC on October 7, 2017.

Mahnaz Afkhami will speak about the Iranian women's movement and the global women's movement at the event "Election 2016 and the Global Women's Movement" hosted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs on November 1, 2016.

Afkhami spoke at an event co-hosted by by the Alliance for Peacebuilding's Women and Peacebuilding Affinity Group, The United Nations Association of the National Capital Area and The National Capital Chapter of the U.S. National Committee for UN Women on highlights from the 60th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women on March 30, 2016.

Afkhami spoke at a book event hosted by the Women in Public Service Project at The Wilson Center on February 24, 2015 on the anthology Women and Girls Rising: Progress and Resistance Around the World. She authored the chapter entitled "Women’s Human Rights in Iran: From Global Declarations to Local Implementation".

Afkhami writes in Beyond Equality: A Manual for Human Rights Defenders “Women are now in a position to consider that our demands should evolve along with our evolving consciousness and the growing awareness around the world that women’s rights are human rights. We are now ready to accept full responsibility as citizens of the world to think about a new vision for all citizens of that world – men and women. We will not forget the oppressions and continuing abuses suffered by many women across the world. But we realize that an equal share of the ruling 50 percent is not enough for us. We want to think about “The World We Seek.”

“Women are now in a position to consider that our demands should evolve along with our evolving consciousness and the growing awareness around the world that women’s rights are human rights. We are now ready to accept full responsibility as citizens of the world to think about a new vision for all citizens of that […]

“In our approach to the unequal status of women in Iran and the ways we developed our strategies, we went from evidential experience to theory–we did not start with a theoretical assumption and try to fit reality to it. Our only presupposition was that the status of women in our country was unequal and that […]

About Mahnaz Afkhami

A lifetime advocate for the rights of women, Mahnaz Afkhami works with activists across the world, especially in Muslim majority societies, to help women become leaders. She is Founder and President of Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP), Executive Director of Foundation for Iranian Studies...more